It seems somewhat less natural that, the night before the gig, an alien should descend on Calypso and recruit Francis on a star-spangled tour. It seems perfectly natural that Johnson Vendetti’s music should ring faintly and crisply through the streets, as permanently fresh as the mountain air. As we explore, early on, we catch the names of shops: “Maps of Imaginary Countries,” “Café Cliché,” “Shoes Your Own Adventure.” And if you squint, you notice that everyone in town is wearing glasses it’s the sort of detail that draws the dreaminess of life into sharp focus, while the edges of reality blur. It appears to be forged in the ruins of a Roman colosseum-vertiginous, ringed with brick, its piazzas packed with eager spectators. Not that Calypso is entirely of this Earth. The story begins in Calypso, Colorado, our hero’s hometown, and I was sad when it blasted free of the place, and, indeed, of the planet. In fairness, we do get quite a show a guitar materialises in Francis’s hands, and he erupts into, well, into “Eruption”-the solo by Eddie Van Halen, which made it sound as though his guitar were soliloquising as fretfully as Hamlet-or, at least, into an “Eruption”-style sound, like an anxious orgasm, all flit and flail as the notes come together. It wants to mine the depths and difficulties of finding-of synthesising-your own artistic voice, but it doesn’t show us the toil. The trouble with The Artful Escape is ease. It is a subject that Dylan himself dug into with relish. This is not a bad premise, the steel-strung airiness of the older generation, both solid and beyond reach, versus the plugged-in anxiety of youth. As someone points out, “You dress like a drifter but you sound like a space opera.” In other words, Francis is going electric. Francis has a lot to live up to, then, and he is due to play a gig celebrating the anniversary of “Pines.” But there is a problem, brought on by a simple twist of fate. Whippy, he is clearly modelled after a young Bob Dylan. With his black sunglasses his harmonica, fixed within a neck brace and his dark tangle of hair, like a mound of chocolate Mr. The hero is Francis Vendetti, a young musician whose uncle, Johnson Vendetti, was a folk legend-his album “Pines” adorns the pause screen. A few minutes later, another command pops up: “To shred a sci-fi guitar odyssey, hold X.” And there you have it: the plot, the appeal, and the perils of this strumming-of-age tale. “To strum a folk ballad about the toil of a miner’s life, hold X.” So begins The Artful Escape, a side-scrolling adventure with a pinch of mild platforming.

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